


Needs

by redcandle17



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-22
Updated: 2014-05-22
Packaged: 2018-01-26 02:50:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 759
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1671899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redcandle17/pseuds/redcandle17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa encounters the devout Ser Sandor of the Faith and is determined to get the Hound back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Needs

The Hound acts like he barely knows her. He isn't called the Hound anymore either. Now he's Ser Sandor, Champion of the Faith. He's courteous to her when they pass each other in the corridors. He bows and mutters the meaningless pleasantries a knight ought to say to a lady. He doesn't laugh and his eyes don't linger on her the way they used to. Sansa misses him.

It makes her cherish their secret all the more. She only has to close her eyes and she can see her tower room lit with green fire again. She can remember so vividly what it felt like to be crushed against his chest and kissed hard. No kiss she's received since has compared to it. 

When she and Petyr arrived to find hundreds of holy knights quartered in Harrenhal and the Hound among them, she'd been so excited. She'd thought for sure that he would come to her in private. 

She's hurt and disappointed by his distance. She fears he's forgotten her. "Do you remember...King's Landing?" she asks him desperately one evening in the sept. 

There's a long silence before he answers, "Aye." He adds, "A lady ought to know better than to interrupt a man at his prayers."

Sansa had always assumed that she'd like the Hound more as a knight. But the old Hound would never have chosen prayer over her company. It takes her a fortnight to approach him again. "Would you walk in the godswood with me, my lord?"

"No, my lady" he replies curtly. 

To be denied so flatly is humiliating. Sansa slinks away in shame. There are plenty of other knights in the castle, younger, handsomer men whose devotion to the Seven seem to falter in her presence. Sansa flirts with them, but there's little joy in it. 

She wonders how the Hound came to be holy. He'd told her once he didn't believe in the gods. He is a knight, too, when he once scorned the ideals of knighthood. One evening when he is seated beside her at a feast, she asks him about it. 

"I believe now," he says simply. He doesn't even look at her, even though every other man close enough to look is staring at the low-cut bodice of her gown. 

Her prayers have gone unanswered for so long that Sansa has largely lost faith in both the old gods of her father and the new gods of her mother. She can't imagine what could have made the Hound not only believe, but be devout in his belief. "But why?" she persists.

"The Seven healed me of my torment and cleansed the sins of the wretched creature I was. They filled me with Their grace."

"I see," she says, thought she still doesn't understand how he could be so different. She puts her hand in his lap and begins to massage him through his breeches. He grabs her wrist and forces her hand back into her own lap, his grip iron strong as ever. When he lets go of her, she gropes him again and he holds her hand down on the bench between them for the rest of the feast.

Late that night Sansa sneaks out of her bed chamber and crosses the yard to the tower where the High Septon's men sleep. The guards don't question a serving girl with more kindling for the fire. She makes her way to the top of the tower and enters the Hound's room to find him awake. 

He curses, and it makes Sansa smile because it's the first time she's heard him curse since King's Landing. She takes off her clothes and walks to his bed naked. "Kiss me."

He curses again. Then he seizes her. His mouth on hers is brutal. It's both as she remembered and much better. His hands on her body are rough, his touch scorching. She welcomes the pain when he takes her maidenhood; she doesn't cry out.

He seems angry after he's finished. "Prettier than Gregor," he says, stroking her face with a callused fingertip, "But no less cruel." 

"I'm not cruel," she protests, "I'm very kind."

"What is the price of your kindness, little bird? Did you make me break my vows solely for your amusement, or do you need me to kill someone?"

"How could you think that of me? I needed you."

"Well, you have me," he says sourly. 

She needs him more than the Seven need him. They'll forgive her and he'll forgive her, too, eventually. Sansa kisses him again.


End file.
